How do I install and use a USB microphone with Puppy?

[redandwhitestripes]

Hi guys,
I'm running Tahrpup and Tahrpup 64 on two different systems.

Got myself a USB microphone, sorry I don't remember the details but Windows calls it a ""generic USB pnp sound device". The packaging said, correctly, that it plugs and plays on any windows or Mac system.

But when I plug in to my beloved Puppy. Nothing happens. Nada. No recognition, no reading in the mount points, etc.

I need to use this microphone for my work, I can't use a standard jack microphone because it captures too much background noise.

Can anyone help me with getting it working on Puppy? Thank you in advance.
Greg

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, Greg.

Since this is a USB mike, as opposed to a standard 'jack' mike, it's quite likely recognised as a separate sound card by the system.

First things first. Run

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lsusb

.....for me, please, and let's see what the output looks like. Then, run Menu->Setup->Multiple Sound Card Wizard, and see what that gives you. If the microphone has its own built-in sound chip, it should show up here, too.

Over to you...


Mike.

[Puppyt]

Wot Mike said
I have a similar getup, so have attached a screenie to illustrate getting a USB mic (Sennheiser headset) operational in TahrPup64. 'lsusb' results before and after plugging it in, and then checking to select it in ALSA multiple card.
HTH

[mikeslr]

Hi All,

Spent about 5 minutes hunting for Multiple Sound Cards as it didn't appear in the Multimedia Submenu nor in various searches. Figured I'd save others the time/aggravation. As the PuppyT's screenshot shows, its part of Sound Wizard, which is listed on Menu>Setup or, more specifically under Xenialpup64, Menu>Setup>Alsa Sound Wizard.

mikesLr

[Puppyt]

I should fess up - when I saw redandwhitestripes' request I immediately wanted to post the solution I found to getting my headset operational after much hassle in I-forget-which-version-of-Puppy in one of my multi-boot setups, some months ago. It was only after posting that I re-read Mike Walsh's post in detail and saw our slightly different routes to initiate the USB mic. Thanks for spotting the difference, mikesLr, and I'm glad it helped you.
2nd fess - in all my version hopping lately I didn't realise that I was actually using TahrPup32 in my demonstration above - which has the menu item listed as Mike Walsh outlined - but not to be found in TahrPup64, nor in XenialPup64. Go figure?

[redandwhitestripes]

Thank you all kindly. I never ceases to humble me how helpful Puppy folk are.

This is my readout:

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1e4e:0102 Cubeternet GL-UPC822 UVC WebCam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 1bcf:0005 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 8086:0808 Intel Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub


So I see my webcam but sadly no mic
However I noticed one of the 1.1 root hub messages does vanish when I take out the mic.

[Mike Walsh]

@redandwhitestripes:-

Mm. Okay. What about the Multiple Sound Card Wizard (whichever route you take to find it)?

What does that show you? Any joy there?


Mike.

[theru]

What does arecord -l give you?

[redandwhitestripes]

Sorry for the slow reply, folks. It's been hectic.

MSW just shows my main card.

arecord -l gives me:

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**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 2: ALC887-VD Alt Analog [ALC887-VD Alt Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[redandwhitestripes]

Sorry for the slow reply, folks. It's been hectic.

MSW just shows my main card.

arecord -l gives me:

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**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 2: ALC887-VD Alt Analog [ALC887-VD Alt Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[greengeek]

[edit]: Looks like your usb sound card is called card 2
Does anything happen if you plug a mic into the usb sound card and try recording using this syntax:

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arecord  hw:2,0 -d 10  /root/test1.wav

or

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arecord  -D hw:2,0 -d 10  /root/test1.wav

(the "-D" switch may be necessary)

or:

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arecord -f S16_LE -r 44100 --device="hw:2,0" /root/test2.wav

EDIT : in order to find out if the usb sound card is available it may also be worth running the command:

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amixer

This will allow you to check and set the record volume. Selecting the correct mic is the first step - setting the volume may also be necessary (or else it just records silence)
The following command should reveal what amixer knows about card 2:

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amixer -c2

[greengeek]

If you post the output of:

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amixer -c2

it should show what Mic controls are available within that external usb sound card.

It may be necessary to tell the card what mic volume and capture volume you want to set.

On my system the following syntax sets mic capture volume (on the external usb sound card) to maximum:

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amixer -c1 sset Mic 30

However on your system this sort of command will need to reflect card 2 (ie -c2). Also - your mic controls may be different and the max value of "30" may be inappropriate for your system. The amixer -c2 command should show you what percentage each mixer control is set to. If they are already at 100% then there is no need to change them.

edit : Once you have used these commands to identify that the usb soundcard is being seen by the hardware and that you can use arecord to access the usb mic then the next step is to get the other components of your system to access that port.

[redandwhitestripes]

Thanks once again for the help. I'll get on this and will share my results. You guys rock.